


Tightly As You Held On To Me

by TheSouthernFalconer



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dissociation, Established Relationship, F/M, Feeding, Fluff and Angst, Healthy Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Self-Harm, Self-Indulgent, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26345935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSouthernFalconer/pseuds/TheSouthernFalconer
Summary: “Up,” she hears, his other arm winding around her to lift her up, his lips ghosting over her forehead. She comes face to face with him, and she’s vaguely aware of what a mess she must look- with tear streaks down her face, still beading at the corners of her eyes, damp and dirty with her hair sticking out everywhere. She doesn’t cry often, and she doesn’t cry pretty. But Lucio looks at her with nothing but adoration, though she’s not so far gone that she couldn’t catch the pain in those silver eyes, and it makes her cry all over again. "*Sybilla struggles through a terrible mental health day- it isn't pretty, but she isn't alone.
Relationships: Apprentice/Lucio (The Arcana)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	Tightly As You Held On To Me

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Self Harm, Dissociation, References to Past Trauma, Abandonment Issues, General Bad Mental Health Day Stuff-
> 
> Take care, friends!

It hasn’t been very long. She thinks so, at least. It’s raining outside, _pouring_ , the kind of storm she’d always associated with Vesuvia. _This_ city doesn’t storm all that much. She doesn’t mind the thunder- half of her wishes it gets loud enough to drown out the white noise in her head. The other half wishes it would slice open a portal through which she can slip off and disappear. She’s curled around Mercedes, her tears soaking through her snow white fur. She thinks she can hear Melchior bark, from somewhere far, far away. Mercedes whines, once, in her grasp, and she buried her face a little further, smelling the chamomile scent of her expensive dog shampoo. Royd is perched sentinel over the headboard. He hasn’t moved since the morning. She hadn’t bothered to open the shop, hadn’t even bothered to shift out of bed. She thinks she’s eaten- Lucio hand-feeding her apples and pears sometime in the recent past.

Sounds like something he’d do. He knows how much worse it gets when she’s hungry.

Hungry.

Maybe it’s the dream that’s done her in- the one about the cold, about the short, horrifying trudge through the snow where she didn’t know if she’d live or die at the end of it. The icy terror of back then had settled over her like a leaden weight, and she’d woken up crying, gone back to sleep crying, and maybe she’s crying again, though she can’t really feel it. Her eyes are aching, and her head is pounding, so maybe she is.

Maybe.

She knows, with reasonable certainty that Lucio has been with her all day- that he was only a little way away, downstairs in the kitchen. If she strains her ears she knows she could hear him snap at the housekeeper- she wants him here, but she doesn’t want to ask for too much. She knows that the hunger gnawing at her, the thing that had nothing to do with food, was a wild, unreasonable thing. She tucks her hand under Mercedes’ weight. If she looks at them for too long, she knows she’ll see the blood there that she couldn’t wash away. If she looks at them for too long, she knows she’ll want to bleed in return. It won’t hurt as much if you give yourself what you deserve. She knows she shouldn’t, but she scrapes her nails down her arm. She misses the red, raised lines tracking down her upper arm like tally marks.

You’re nothing more than a hunter. Nothing less than prey. She wants to hurt, to drain the hunger from her tired body, and she doesn’t want him to leave her. She’s been alone before, and she doesn’t think she could do it one more time, even if she deserves it. She starts to cry quietly again. Her skin feels cleaner than necessary. Her nails dig in, more insistent this time. If she tears, punctures, just a little, that’ll settle it, she thinks. The sting will silence her mind, and it’ll be a small offering, a tiny price to pay, for all this to last.

_I’m going to fetch him._

“No, Royd.” She says weakly. “I don’t-“

_Nonsense._

She hears him take flight, but she feels too weak to raise her head or stop him. A cold tremble of panic rushes through her. What if Royd doesn’t come back? What if something happens to him, as something always does? She screws her eyes shut, and cries a little more in earnest. Mercedes huffs worriedly, but she does not move. She thinks there are shadows behind her. If she opens her eyes, she knows she’ll see the outline of a spear striking through the thin air.

 _I should have killed you when I could._ Every time Ana spared her a scrap of meat, every time she fumbled or tripped or fell or dawdled on her chores- she never said the words, but she never said anything else, either. It’d be awfully easy, she thinks, to take things away from her. The world was once cold and terrifying, made to hurt, made to tear into everything she’d attached herself to- and she feels adrift, as though she was slipping down through the broken realms again– the bed as surreal as thin air and only Mercedes’ weight to ground her.

The wind outside is too loud, sounds too much like a blizzard- the kind of wind that she knows could rip the skin off her bones. She doesn’t want pain, but if she could just- only barter it in a little, deal it to herself in tiny installments to seal a debt that will never end, then maybe, then maybe-

She presses a shaking hand to the frame of the bed, and she whispers a spell, watching a sigil bleed through the wood. The magic drains her, and it can keep things out that shouldn’t be here, so she does it again. And again. She feels her hair stand on end, and by the third spell she knows she might faint.

It wouldn’t be so bad if she did. Sometimes she wishes her pain were soft and quiet, but it is not. Even when she lies here, motionless, her heart drums frantically, her limbs tap against the mattress- it’s a feral thing, just like she is, feral and ugly and wrong and loud. She doesn’t scream, only because she’s worn herself out. She’s about to cast the spell again, just to push her luck and see if it would knock her out, when she hears the bedroom door open and Lucio’s heels click against the floor.

“Stop that,” he chides, gently pulling her hands away from the headboard. She tries to struggle, but her weak tugs are no match for his strength today. She hears him sigh, and set something on the nightstand. Food, she thinks, by the smell of it. Her stomach growls in response.

She never stops being hungry.

Sybilla feels Lucio’s weight sink down on the mattress, the clink and thud of his boots being unlatched and shoved aside. Her hands are still trapped between golden fingers. “Up,” she hears, his other arm winding around her to lift her up, his lips ghosting over her forehead. She comes face to face with him, and she’s vaguely aware of what a mess she must look- with tear streaks down her face, still beading at the corners of her eyes, damp and dirty with her hair sticking out everywhere. She doesn’t cry often, and she doesn’t cry pretty. But Lucio looks at her with nothing but adoration, though she’s not so far gone that she couldn’t catch the pain in those silver eyes, and it makes her cry all over again.

Mercedes inches closer, trying to paw at her and climb over her, and settles on wiggling and nuzzling over her knees. “You’re worrying ‘Cedes, see?” There’s no bite in it, none at all, but it makes her whimper out an apology nonetheless. “No.” He says firmly, pressing a more insistent kiss to the crown of her head, and holding her up higher so he could gather her to his chest. Blindly, she puts her hand to his heart, another protective spell at the ready, and he grunts in protest, taking her hand and pressing his lips to her fingers, one by one. “None of that either, I know what you’re doing. Think anything’s gonna come in here and hurt you when _I’m_ here?” Holding her up with one arm, he uncovered the steel dish on the nightstand. Eggs over toast, runny the way she likes it, and her favourite river salmon stew. She makes for it on impulse, but her hands are shaking around the spoon. “Hey-“ Lucio turns her over, replacing his warmth with a pillow to prop her up, and settles beside her, spooning the stew and offering her big, filling bites of the bread. Mercedes alternates between laying her head on her lap, and licking away her tears.

She tries to focus on the warmth and the explosion of flavor, on Lucio’s fingers combing through her messy hair at intervals, but her mind races to how _good_ this is, and how much she has to protect and how much she has to compensate to deserve this, and her nails sneak beneath the blanket to rake at her arms again. Lucio’s so engrossed in feeding her that she thinks he’d miss it, but in an instant, his golden hand stills her motion.

“ _Lillie.”_

“Sorry.” Her voice is sandpaper, and her throat hurts. “I’m scared.”

Lucio puts aside the dishes to wrap her in his arms again. Mercedes hops off the bed and reappears with his cape caught between her teeth. “See?” He asks, tugging it over her so she’s cocooned within it, the fur trim tickling her chin. “You’ve got a good bird, two _very_ good dogs, and _me,_ standing between you and danger. Melchior’s standing guard at the door, snapping at anyone who’d dare to come in. Noone can make it past my babies, _or_ me.”

“I know,” she sniffles. “I’m still scared, it’s-“

He muffles the word in his chest again. “It’s not stupid,” his voice is a touch softer. “I get it.”

She knows he does. 

She also knows that Royd is scouring the house for sharp objects to hide away from her, that Lucio won’t be wearing out his claws anywhere she could reach or find till this wave passes, and it’s that, the feeling of _not_ being thrown into the snow and wind to fend for herself that makes her crumple in his arms, desperate and frantic again, pulling him closer and climbing into his lap, the spell already rising to her fingertips, when she shuts her off again with a squeeze to her waist that brings her back to herself.

“You’re safe, baby.” He knows what to say, after the years they’ve spent together, he has it down to an art. “Promise, you’re safe. I’ve got you.” She buries her face in his shoulder, and he makes an encouraging noise. “That’s good. D’you wanna lie down on the bed?” She shakes her head. “Alright, that’s good, wait-“ he pats away her hair from his face and brushes it off to one side, and then leans up against the headboard, maneuvering her so she’s draped over him. She muffles a scream into his shoulder, and she knows he feels it trembling through her. She screams once, twice, and again, and again, and he holds her through it, drumming his fingers against her back, the comforting weight of metal running up and down her spine, his breath catching a little, now and again, but he doesn’t, not once, not ever, tell her to be quiet.

Sybilla isn’t a small woman- she hates nothing more than feeling tiny and insignificant, but Lucio always, _always_ has a way of making her feel protected- not fragile, no matter how weak she feels, and never small, with how much he likes to talk her up, but protected, treasured and protected. What was it that he'd said? Even through the haze of her pain, she remembers it like it was yesterday.

_You deserve a real hero at your side._

_You sure as hell don’t need one._

_But you deserve one, and I wanna be that guy._

Sybilla doesn't think it gets any realer than this.

“I don’t want to lose you,” she rasps, curling her fingers into his shirt.

“I’m not going anywhere.” He says simply. “ _Nothing_ ’ _s_ gonna get me down, you know that.”

She shudders. “But I don’t-“

“You deserve the _world._ ” He says it like it’s a universal truth, as right and true as the rain battering outside their windows, as the voice of the Arcana when she spreads out her cards. “And you don’t have to do anything, or-“ she could feel his grimace- “I dunno, _punish_ yourself. All the bets are off, all the deals are done, and you were there when it happened.”

She has nothing to say to that.

“I’m still scared.” She says.

“And I’ve still got you, yeah?”

She doesn’t have it in her to argue.

“I dreamt of the South,” she says instead. His arms tighten protectively around her. “Last night, and how it was, and-“ she trails off, the words hovering before her and dissolving away before she could get chase them.

“This isn’t the South.” He reminds her. “There’s no gross snow, there’s no creepy demons, there’s no stupid _someone_ that’s gonna lay a finger on you- there’s only you and me and our babies here, yeah? We’re not there anymore. We left that place behind.”

She nods weakly.

“Tell you what, I’m gonna carry you up to the bath, does that sound good, gorgeous?” She shrugs listlessly. “You’ve spent all day in here, we need to wipe all of this off you. I’ll call for some cake from the kitchen, and we’re gonna wash your hair and I’m gonna give you a massage _so_ good that you’re gonna fall asleep like _that._ ” He pauses, as though to let the brilliance of his plan sink in. “And we’re gonna sleep so cuddled up that I’ll show up in all your shitty dreams and beat the shit out of whoever’s hurting you.” He sounds so sure of himself, so fervent, that Sybilla couldn’t help but let herself believe him. “I’ve fought off monsters in the stupid snow for you before, baby, it won’t be the first time.” She lets out a tiny, fragmented laugh, and feels him physically perk up at the sound. “That’s what I like to hear.” He smiles against her hair. He very gently set her apart from him so he could stand up and sweep her up into a bridal carry, tilting her up to kiss her like he couldn’t resist it, even now, when she looked like this. “Don’t move an inch,” he reminds her, “and don’t fall asleep ‘til I’m done pampering you, okay?”

Her chest still feels like broken glass, and she knows she’ll wobble and fall over if he ever set her down. But she tucks her face into the crook of his neck, shutting her eyes and breathing in his rosy cologne. She knows she has this, until the world feels real again and the ground like earth and not breaking ice, until she could bear to stand on her own two feet again and stop clawing and tearing at herself without his hands holding hers apart, she has this, as she always does. Lucio rocks her, steady and confident, the swagger in his step informing her that she must have said some of it aloud. But his voice is tender and precious and eager when he speaks again, after what feels like a long, fragile pause. “You’re right,” he sounds as though _he’s_ the one who couldn’t believe it. “You’ve got me.” He repeats it again and again at intervals as he draws up the bath, as he slowly pulls her rumpled, stale clothes off her and pours something to the bathwater that dispels shimmering, tulip-scented bubbles.

“You’ve got me, you’ve got me, you’ve got me.” Over and over again through her renewed bout of tears, strong hands kneading and rubbing at her tight muscles and coming to feed her something small and sugary that she does not know the name of, his fingers rubbing soap and oil into her hair, hands never leaving her, arms never letting go, over and over again until she can hear it over the roaring, sweeping things in her mind, until she can hear it over the rain, over the thud-thud-thud of her own heart, over the nasty, hissing bitterness telling her that she still has a price to pay, over and over again, so many times that later, when he _does_ cuddle up to her, impossibly close, their limbs melting into each other’s and the blanket pulled tight over them with his cape still around her, when Sybilla dares to look at her bare hands where he’s _still_ locked them against his chest, scarred and pale with his ruby ring still sparkling in the moonlight, she doesn’t see blood anymore, and for a moment, a brief moment, she remembers that her hunger doesn’t feel like greed, and the shadows are kept at bay, like a dam holds a river in its stubborn grip. 

The rain has slowed to a drizzle, and she doesn’t want the thunder back.

**Author's Note:**

> Tfw you, your OC, AND your fictional faves ALL have abandonment issues. 
> 
> Tumblr: AtypicalAcademic
> 
> Title from: "To Build A Home," by Patrick Watson, The Cinematic Orchestra


End file.
